


Dark Water

by startwithsparks



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Love at First Sight, Minor Character Death, Necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startwithsparks/pseuds/startwithsparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya has never been in love before, not really, not until the moment <i>he</i> walks into the House of Black and White. But how long can love last when one has no name and the other is on Death's door?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Water

The cloying smell of burning wax greeted her the moment she ascended the stairs into the main temple. Candles the color of blood dripped their heavy wax on the floor, while black and white candles glittered throughout the rest of the large, round gallery. Arya grasped the Merling King's trident as she slipped under his outstretched arms, bid Bakkalon a soft nod, and blew a playful kiss to the Moon-Pale Maiden before she finally stopped at the Stranger's feet and smiled up at him. He and the Hooded Wayfarer, standing side by side, were her favorites of all the faces. They were so alike and yet so different at the same time. In this temple, the Stranger's face was skin stretched across jagged bone and ram's horns curled at the side of his head. His eyes stared blank and empty forward, always forward, as if he could see the moment of death for every man. The Wayfarer, with his long scythe, stood with his skeletal face shrouded in a heavy cowl. His own gaze obscured. For him, death was blind, it saw no one as being anything more than another life to pluck.

She took one of the tapers near the Stranger's statue, and lit a red candle, as she did every morning. "For Arya Stark," she murmured softly, words for only the two of them. Every day she died this way, to become No One, and every day it became a little easier.

Once the candle was burning strong, she turned back to the alcoves, checking each one for those who may have come in the night. There was an interim between the time the acolytes retired in the evening and the time she started at dawn, and occasionally there were those who came in those dusty hours, who sought the relief from life that their pool offered. Some mornings she could smell them, the dull odor of the dead, but it had been so long now that it no longer had an effect on her. It anything, it was a sign that someone had come and got what they desired inside this temple. Death, she understood now, was a gift that only the gods could give. That knowledge made leaving behind her past and everything that had come to haunt her so much simpler. It wasn't that the pain no longer burned in her chest, but that pain meant you were still alive. And the dead were blessed for not having to endure it any longer.

Between the Weeping Woman and the Black Goat a candle had melted into a thick red puddle. Arya could tell it had been burning all night, with no one to attend it and bring another. She laid down the stubs of candles she had collected and made her way over, sliding along the wall into the alcove. A young woman laid with her knees hugged tight to her chest, her dress a soft silk with edges of Myrish lace, the color of cream. Her hair, heavy black curls, obscured part of her face, and was still damp from her tears. She had died crying, as so many did. Arya merely brushed her hair away from her face and nudged her onto her back. With the way she had died, she was easier than most to pick up, and she weighed very little. Under the silk and lace she was a waif. She had already wasted into nothing, she had only come to speed up the inevitable. Too often she wondered what had brought the dead to their door, and there were priests there who could draw such final thoughts from them, but they always cast a wary gaze on her and refused to so much as offer her a token greeting. She remembered a witch who had once looked at her that way, and it still made her uneasy.

She took the woman down the winding stairs into the cold, dark room that the dead were brought to be prepared. There she found an empty table - a simple slab of marble on a thick pedestal, and laid the woman out on it. She had a lovely face, no doubt someone would be pleased to wear it. The gown Arya stripped off herself, careful with the delicate lace, and folded it up in a bundle at the woman's feet. It wasn't her duty today to parcel out clothes and jewels and other belongings, as much as she wished to stay and watch the colors change in the woman's skin; today she was meant for the temple. With one last look, a soft touch to the elegant arch of the woman's foot, Arya nodded at the other dead in the room and made her way out again.

It had long been the case that she would rather be down below, in the cold, than upstairs dealing with the still-living, but people rarely ever got to do what they enjoyed. Still, no matter what she was doing, she would rather be outside these walls, listening, seeing, whatever she could do to be able to absorb a little more of the personalities that lingered everywhere in Braavos.

As she came up the stairs and back onto the landing to the temple, she caught a sliver of light knifing through the room. The door eased open slowly, uncertainly, before finally a boy slipped through and quietly closed the door behind him. Arya leaned against the wall, her hands tucked inside the arms of her robe, and watched him curiously as he stood, with his back to her, facing the pool. She watched as he edged slowly around it, nervous, and yet intensely curious. Arya cleared her throat.

The boy jumped, startled, and whipped around to look at her. His eyes were dark blue and his black hair formed curls around his face. Though he was broad at the shoulders, there was barely the suggestion of stubble on his cheeks, and Arya pegged him for about sixteen. And there was something about him, something she couldn't quite place, that made a knot of urgency twist in her stomach. It wasn't lust, she'd felt that often enough before, but something so entirely unfamiliar to her that she didn't even know what to call it, and she didn't like it. His gaze made her uneasy, the way his dark brows furrowed and he refused to match his gaze with hers. Arya slipped her hands from her sleeves to wrap snug around her waist instead.

"Are you a priest?" he asked, in the common tongue.

She shook her head. "Just an acolyte. Do you need a priest?"

"I don't know."

Arya started to chew her lip but then stopped herself, and dropped her arms to her sides. "What did you come for?"

He shifted his gaze to the dark water of the pool behind him, then back at her. "I heard that if you drink from this water, you die..."

"A gentle death," she nodded. "Is that what you want?"

He nodded.

He was so young, but Arya could imagine quite easily why he might want to die. There were too many times when her desire for revenge had been the only thing stopping her from taking a dagger to her own throat - or letting the Hound do it for her. She supposed she got her wish; she had died, and yet the opportunity for revenge wasn't entirely lost to her. She no longer got to choose when someone died, though - that was the gods' decision - and though it made the knot in her stomach twist harder to think about it, she had no right to try to talk this boy out of it, if this was what he desired. Instead, feeling suddenly overburdened by the weight of her own life, she reached for one of cups used to fetch water from the pool.

"What gods do you follow?" she asked.

He shrugged and rubbed at the side of his jaw. "My father believed in the Seven, but he's long dead now too; my mother as well, and my sister."

Arya had a sister once as well, a sister who was now lost - answering to a different name, living another life. Their mother had often said how alike they were, and she supposed that was true now. Neither of them were who they'd once been. She handed the boy the cup, her fingers brushing against the side of his hand, and quickly pulled away. Touch was not something she had ever gotten used to and now more than ever it set her skin alight in a wholly uncomfortable way. She didn't know what it was about the boy that she felt so much attraction and repulsion all at the same time, but it was there, and it lingered even after they were no longer touching. If he felt it as well, he showed no sign. His face was pale and his gaze still lingered on the pool.

"Fill your cup," Arya said, "then come with me."

There was a moment of trepidation in his movements as he knelt down next to the pool and stared at his own reflection in the calm water. Then he broke the stillness with the edge of the cup, sending ripples out across the surface, and filled his glass until the water sloshed over the edge. It wasn't many who had the courage to fill their cup so full, who had such a fervent resolution to see the job done absolutely. He turned to her then and Arya beckoned him to follow her back to the alcove. Her own candle was still burning warm and she used it to light a second, then showed him into the alcove.

"Drink, and then lie down. It'll be as if you're falling asleep."

He paused, "Will you stay?"

Arya swallowed hard, her heart giving one aching throb before it settled into place, and found herself nodding before she even realized she'd responded. He held out his hand and she took it, her fingers curling with the desire to flinch away again, but she followed him in and sat next to him on the bench. He drank swiftly, the black water staining his lips, slick and dark, before he licked the last remnants away. He set the glass next to him, then reached out to tangle his fingers with hers. Arya heaved a deep sigh, but allowed him to cling to her. Different people needed different things and too often a priest would sit with the dying. She could go get one, the Silent Sister that lingered like a ghost within these walls, but he - or the gods - had chosen her instead and she felt some obligation, some _urge_ to stay.

They said nothing in those long moments, the only sound was their gentle breathing and the soft rhythm of their heartbeats. She could hear her own, but his pulse she only felt thudding slowly... then slower... against the inside of her own wrist. Then finally there was nothing. No pulse, no breath, just the hum of her own body as his head slumped lifelessly against her shoulder. Arya had never been so close to someone at the moment of their death before, and that stillness awoke something in her. She glanced over at him, his curls falling lazily against his forehead and his eyes closed as if he were dreaming.

Arya slipped her hand out of his grasp and turned, taking him by the shoulders to straighten him against the wall. She brushed the curls from his face and ran her fingertips down the strong line of his jaw, then further to where a light smear of black still lingered at the edge of his mouth. Arya closed her eyes and leaned in, her lips pressed against his. She could taste the poison on his lips and tongue, but she knew it wasn't enough to harm her. The way his mouth yielded to her made her shiver and the knot untangled to slide warm through her body. She pressed in deeper, her hands clutching his jaw, and kissed him until her mouth ached. She felt dizzy as she pulled away, no doubt from the water she'd lapped off of him, but all she did was kneel on the floor in front of him and gently lay him down across the bench.

Her fingers trailed across his neck and collarbone, down to the laces of his shirt. Curiously, she slipped the ties loose and opened the shirt down to his navel. His chest was hairless, muscles thick and defined. But it wasn't that - his physical beauty - that drew her in as much as the look of peace on his face. For as upset as he was coming into the temple, he seemed free of any worries now. A small smile even lingered on his mouth. Whether he had died like that or if she had forced it into that shape with her kiss, she didn't know. But she liked the way he looked when he smiled. Arya pressed her cheek to his chest, listening for a heartbeat that she knew wasn't there, and felt the warmth as it seeped slowly out of his skin. She didn't know how long she sat there with him, the stone flags biting into her knees, but his body had just started to stiffen when she finally pulled back. Arya blew out his candle then came back to the alcove where she sat on the floor, pressing her face against his cold hand and running her fingers along his skin. If she had loved him before, it that was the pain that settled in her chest when he first looked at her, then she loved him all the more like this.


End file.
